ZC_2_00 — Sociology Institutions: Subfolder Summary

ZC_2_08 — Demography and Population Studies

Demography is the scientific study of human population — its size, structure, distribution, and change through births, deaths, and migration. World population reached ~8 billion in November 2022 (UN), having grown from ~

ZC_2_02 — Collective Memory and Cultural Transmission of Myth

Collective memory — the shared pool of knowledge and information held by a group — is the mechanism by which myths, traditions, and historical narratives are transmitted across generations. This document surveys the scho

G_4_00 — Interdisciplinary Meta Methods: Subfolder Summary

G_4_18 — Biogeography and Ancient Distribution Patterns

Biogeography — the study of the spatial distribution of organisms across the planet, both present and past — is one of the most powerful frameworks for understanding Earth history, evolutionary processes, and the mechani

G_4_24 — Post-Scarcity Economics and Resource-Based Models

Post-scarcity economics addresses the theoretical conditions under which advanced automation, AI, and energy abundance could eliminate material scarcity as the organizing principle of economic life. The concept has deep

G_4_19 — Oral Tradition as Historical Record — Scientific Assessment

Oral tradition — the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, narratives, law, and custom without writing — was the primary medium of human memory for >95% of our species' existence and remains vital in many living c

G_4_11 — Archaeoastronomy Methods and Systematic Evidence

Archaeoastronomy — the study of how past civilizations understood, observed, and used astronomical phenomena — has matured from a field plagued by speculative alignment claims into a rigorous interdisciplinary discipline

G_4_14 — Replication Crisis and What It Means for Ancient Claims

The replication crisis refers to the discovery, beginning in the early 2010s, that a substantial proportion of findings published in peer-reviewed scientific journals — particularly in psychology, social science, and bio

G_4_17 — Microbiome Archaeology — Ancient Gut and Soil Microbes

Microbiome archaeology — the extraction and analysis of ancient microbial communities from archaeological materials (dental calculus, coprolites, mummified remains, soil sediments, ceramics) — has emerged since ~2012 as

G_4_12 — Citizen Science and Open-Source Research

Citizen science — the systematic involvement of non-professional volunteers in scientific research through data collection, classification, analysis, or distributed computation — has emerged as a powerful modern framewor

G_1_04 — Isotope Analysis and Provenance Studies

Isotope analysis — the measurement of ratios of stable or radiogenic isotopes preserved in human bone, tooth enamel, animal remains, ceramics, metals, and organic residues — has become one of the most powerful tools in m

G_1_18 — Acoustic Archaeology & Archaeoacoustics

Acoustic archaeology (archaeoacoustics) is the study of sound in past environments and the acoustic properties of archaeological sites, monuments, and artifacts. Emerging as a formal subdiscipline in the 1990s through th

G_1_12 — Geoarchaeology — Sediments, Soils, and Site Formation Processes

Geoarchaeology applies the principles and methods of earth sciences — geology, geomorphology, sedimentology, soil science, and geochemistry — to archaeological problems, focusing on the geological context of archaeologic

G_1_07 — Stable Isotope Analysis and Ancient Diets

Stable isotope analysis of human and animal remains — primarily the measurement of carbon ($\delta^{13}$C), nitrogen ($\delta^{15}$N), and sulfur ($\delta^{34}$S) isotope ratios in bone collagen, tooth enamel, hair kerat

G_1_17 — Experimental Replication of Ancient Technologies

Experimental replication — the systematic recreation of ancient objects, structures, and processes using materials, tools, and techniques available in the past — is a core methodology in experimental archaeology, enablin

G_3_00 — Theoretical Frameworks: Subfolder Summary

G_3_21 — Critical Realism: Roy Bhaskar and Stratified Ontology

Critical realism is a philosophical movement founded by Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) that proposes a stratified ontology — reality consists of three nested domains (the Real, the Actual, and the Empirical) — and argues that s

G_2_04 — Complexity Economics and Ancient Trade Systems

Complexity economics — the application of complex systems theory, non-linear dynamics, and agent-based modeling to economic phenomena — provides a powerful modern framework for understanding ancient and premodern trade s

G_2_18 — Digital Humanities and Computational Text Analysis

Digital humanities (DH) encompasses the application of computational methods — text mining, natural language processing (NLP), statistical analysis, data visualization, geographic information systems (GIS), network analy